2/24/2026 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Robert Perry: My name is Robert Perry. I live at 27150 Butternut Ridge Road. I've lived there since about 1974, and I'd like to make a few additional comments. I made previous comments to the Council. I'd like to make comments of why I think this rezoning is really inappropriate for this location and for this street. And I'm saying that from my experience in two areas. One, as a homeowner of a house that's a hundred years old, and I understand the work and the cost of trying to maintain a century home. And also, as a city planner and a development director for over 60 years. I've worked on zoning plans, land use plans, testified in Common Pleas Court, testified in federal courts on zoning matters. I have a lot of experience in land use and zoning, and the effects of actions that planning commissions and Councils take on various zoning issues. And I can say that if the Council decides to rezone land to allow multifamily homes or apartments, common houses or whatever you want to call it, on Butternut Ridge Road Historic District and is all single-family zoning, this will not be the last of that kind of rezoning. It will just be the first that will have a tremendous effect on the Historic District, a tremendous effect on the people who live on this street. Two things are probably going to happen if the Council so decides to vote for this rezoning and it gets developed as multifamily. One, it will send up a flag to developers in the area that Butternut Ridge Road is open for development of not single-family homes, but multifamily homes. They could already build single-family homes on this property but it will alert developers that this is the first step and it's going to be a precedent set that will be used by future developers and future attorneys to nibble away at the Historic District. And there'll be more rezoning requests and you'll be hard-pressed to say no. If you do say no, you'll certainly end up in court, and the other effect it will have is a lot of people who live in historic homes and have spent a lot of blood, sweat, and tears and money maintaining those homes will probably stop maintaining those homes as they have. And the homes will start to deteriorate which will then make it easier for developers to come in, tear down the house, and put in new development. So I would say you have a big decision to make that will have lasting result on this community and I certainly hope that you determine that this is really an inappropriate rezoning for this location. Thank you. Robert Sharp: My name is Robert Sharp, 25407 Butternut Ridge, a resident here for 47 years. I've already submitted written reports analyzing the 2025 master plan and the Historic District guidelines and shown the inappropriateness of this development. When we first started this out, I got these documents and I was looking for the information in there that would support this proposal. There's nothing. I was stunned reading these. There is nothing in either document, quite the contrary, public opinion was used in planning putting together the 2025 master plan. Both documents are saturated with information and intentions of preserving the Historic District. The exact opposite of what's been proposed. When, and I've submitted these reports, and I'm not going to go over that again. When the attorney was in here last time representing the developer, he made a couple of interesting points that have stuck in my mind. One was that, one reason was that, well the developer has already spent a lot of money. Well, so have we all spent a lot of money living in this Historic District. Hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase and maintain our homes and maintain the character of the Historic District. These old homes are expensive to maintain. He also made a mention here and IT paraphrase because I don't remember exactly 02-24-26 Public Hearing Minutes Page 2